


towards the sun

by dwyndling



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Childhood Friends, Kingdom Hearts III - Re Mind DLC Spoilers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Promises, Reminiscence, eternal bond - Freeform, fluff?, lea has isa brainworms, thanks nomura for my life, these boys talk through things for Once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23206519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwyndling/pseuds/dwyndling
Summary: There are dainty swirling dust-motes, in the golden light coming from the window. Lea takes notice of the way they dance around Isa's head, framing him like an old religious painting. Only the dust-motes will hear the words, of everything and nothing and all the sacred little things in-between.
Relationships: Axel & Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Isa & Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 73





	towards the sun

**Author's Note:**

> I feel as though I don't write from Lea's point of view often enough, considering he's my favorite Kingdom Hearts characte. As usual, you can thank my leaisa brainworms for this when I really should be working on my current multichapter!
> 
> // I would also like to preface this by saying there are some mentions of body image throughout, specifically insecurity about feeling underweight, but they are minimal. There is also a line that could be interpreted as a reference to sexual violence, however the line is vague, and left up to reader interpretation. If any of that is a concern for you, then please read at your own discretion.

The fingers which are tracing over his wrist are callused, worn and tired.

_Isa’s hands had once been petite, and slender, fitting inside his own easily with a softness that belied his friend’s blunt and dismissive way of speaking. Now, they are larger than his own, and he knows from experience that they can grip hard enough to strangle._

He exhales through his nose, staring up at the man leaning over him. 

Isa’s not looking at him, green eyes firmly on the hand he’s holding within his own. It’s hard to imagine what he must see it in, but perhaps the luna diviner has learned how to read the lines that it creases and folds into.

Breaking the silence, Isa makes a small noise, perhaps a murmur of appreciation. “I see that you’ve cured your hangnail habit.”

As a teenager, he used to chew on his nails whenever he was thinking hard or aggravated. Isa always used to scold him for it, saying that it was no way for someone of his age to behave. Lea’s nails were always chipped and battered, the skin around them ripped into pieces. His knuckles were much the same, usually raw and red from whatever exploits had demanded the use of his fists. 

The tips of his fingers are now soft, a decade sheathed in black leather having left them to stay smooth and unmarred. Calluses must lie on the palms of his hand, from where the edges of various weapons have rested, an insignificant price to pay for the control he’s trained into himself.

...but this isn’t the time to philosophize. He grins lazily up at Isa. “You still remember that?”

Isa doesn’t bother voicing a response, a hand circling loosely around his wrist to further study whatever intricacies he’s finding on Lea’s hands. “Chewing on your nails is bad for your teeth.”

“You don’t say. But have my teeth suffered any ill effects so far?” He allows the grin to stretch out, showing his teeth in what feels as though it was originally intended to be a predatory smile.

Finally Isa looks up at him, green gaze solemn and quiet. “Have they?” His voice is hushed, a rough whisper which spells out peace.

The moment hangs still and quiet. There’s a stray beam of light, an orange glow from the twilight that has bounced through the window and left Isa with a stroke of radiance across his forehead, a golden band on his brow.

Lea says nothing and simply stares back quietly, the smile falling away as he stifles a yawn. The question doesn’t seem to require an answer, a simple exchanging of words which means nothing more than the sounds of the words themselves.

It’s five in the afternoon. They’d been sitting together,while Isa read and Lea messed around on his Gummiphone, a pastime sewn out of quietude and appreciation for said silence. The sounds of Twilight Town through the slightly open window had created a wave of background music, as mingled voices and the sounds of the tram made their way up to the apartment.

He must have slipped into an accidental nap at some point, the device slipping from his hold and onto the bed. When he’d awoken, Isa had been seated next to him, apparently having abandoned both his book and his seat in the armchair and elected instead to paint patterns over the backs of Lea’s wrists with his fingertips, lost in silent contemplation. 

The quietude had simply continued on from there, as the haze of sleep began to lift away and the sanctity of the moment settled in.

One of Isa’s index fingers traces a path, beginning at the veins which lie blue beneath the skin of Lea’s wrist, and dipping further down to reach the inside of his elbow. Pale skin is left unobscured, dotted with freckles and encasing a somewhat spindly arm.

What? He’s never been the most muscular of guys. It’s not _his_ fault he’s always seemed slightly too long and bendy for his own body. It was easy to hide those things under a flowy black coat, a dark shell within which all shortcomings could be easily obscured.

As if he can sense Lea’s thoughts drifting further away and delving into Memory’s Shadowed Lane, Isa gently drops his hand and dips forward, hair falling down around them like blue curtains. 

“Tell me you won’t start chewing on your fingers again.” Their faces are barely inches apart now. 

It’s with a short and breathless laugh that he’s forcibly pulled back into the present. “What, are you saying I’m too old for that?” 

Isa’s exhale is warm on his neck. “It’s unbecoming to an adult to have such a childish habit.”

It’s quite difficult to think of anything else, when their faces are so close. Lea blinks to clear his head. “Yeah? What are you, the adult police?” His voice comes out as a rasp. If this is a move on Isa’s part to be intimidating, it’s having the opposite effect.

As expected, Isa doesn’t dignify that with a response, but a hand reaches out to tuck an errant piece of red hair behind Lea’s ear. It’s an affectionate gesture at best, but their proximity turns it into...something else unnameable.

The silence is deafening for a few empty moments. Lea swallows hard, hyper aware of where Isa’s cool fingers have gentled to rest on the side of his cheekbone. “Is...there something on my face?”

Only highlighted by when he was bathed in the golden glow from the window a moment ago, Isa carries an inner radiance within himself. It’s something he’s always had, magnified and expanded upon by the powers he acquired those eleven-some years ago. His skin is pale and unmarred, save only for the scar. The once-more green eyes now outwardly reflect calm, no matter what peace may or may not rest within. He’s always been exceptionally pretty. 

That’s...not weird to say, right? Regardless of whether they're friends or enemies or something in between the two, it’s not like Lea doesn’t have eyes. Isa has the kind of otherworldly beauty that he’s only grown into more and more over the years, with that long cobalt hair and stern face carved out of ivory.

“Your skin is warm.” Isa’s brows furrow together, and there’s no reason that such an innocuous expression should still be so...eye-catching. “I’d forgotten that you always feel as though you’re running a fever.”

The moment ends, as all things do, as Isa sits up straight once again, drawing his hands back to his lap. “It’s no wonder you can stand to run around in short sleeves at this time of year.”

He wonders why his mouth suddenly feels so dry. Tilting his head, Lea stares up at where his friend’s profile is bathed in sunlight. “What, you’re telling me a chilly breeze is enough to defeat you?”

It doesn’t make Isa smile per se, but he knows him well enough by now that it’s easy to see his eyes squint slightly in amusement. The fact he’s wearing his favorite high-collared jacket indoors is another tell. “Don’t come crying to me this winter, after you inevitably catch hypothermia dressed like that.” He glances back towards Lea, with a knowing look that someone less accustomed might have erroneously called a smirk.

With a sigh, Lea sits up, looking away as he attempts to rescue his hair from where it’s been pressed into the blankets. “...right.” Clever remarks tend to elude him whenever Isa gives him _that_ look.

It’s a strange expression, one which looks like it shouldn’t belong, like it shouldn’t quite fit properly within Isa’s carefully constructed demeanor. It’s a face of indulgence, a visible crack into whatever he’s _really_ thinking behind the calm reservation.

It’s a wonderment, that they’ve managed to come back to a place and time where Isa sees fit to grace him with it.

His fingers catch on a particularly egregious knot in his hair and Lea bites down on his lower lip at the sting. It’s not as though he’s ever really cared if his hair was neat or not, as long as it was out of his face, but it highlights how much of a beanpole he is when it lays flat. 

Better to puff it up like a lion’s mane then, and remind the world that he can bite back.

Without warning, there’s an added presence at his back, as Isa kneels behind him, the bed creaking under his added weight. “May I?”

For a moment, there are no thoughts, as Lea tries to construct what he’s asking permission for. “Uh...go ahead.” 

Doesn’t matter. Trust has always flowed easily between the two of them...or, at the very least, a mutual acceptance of a combined distrust and hopeless attachment. 

Isa’s hands crest over the top of his scalp, searching for the troublesome snag. When they find it, his fingers are gentle at unraveling it, not tugging in the slightest.

It’s been...awhile since he’s been handled so gently. 

“Munny for your thoughts?”

Lea starts, and retroactively remembers not to move his head. “Mm. Still sleepy, I guess.” He fakes a small yawn, and discovers halfway through that it turns into a real one.

“I can hear you thinking from here.” It seems, from feeling alone, that Isa has stopped fighting with his hair and is now simply...braiding it. 

It’s difficult, to restrain himself from craning a glance over one shoulder to discover what expression is on the other man’s face. “I’m...pondering the great mysteries of the universe.”

Isa’s voice is _definitely_ amused now. “Which ones?” The feeling of cool hands in his hair is really beginning to put him back to sleep now.

“The sunrises.” The birth of a new dawn. The close of an era, left now to fade into shadow and memory. The rebirth of light, the handing of a torch.

The resilience of a human heart.

Isa’s fingers have reached the end of the braid, procuring a hair tie from god knows where. “You’ve never expressed an interest in sunrises before. What brought this on?” His voice is a little distracted, as he finishes tying off the hair. 

It’s kind of...cute.

“Nothin’ really.” Lea bites into his bottom lip, and wonders if he stares at the wall in front of him long enough, it will grant him the knowledge to know what he himself is talking about. “I’m just...curious, I guess. I’ve never made a habit of sunrise watching before.”

If the indirect reminder of Axel's most notorious proclivity bothers Isa, he does a wonderful job at hiding it. “That’s because you sleep until noon if no one bothers to wake you.”

He laughs. “True. Do you remember hauling my ass out of bed to get to school five days a week?”

“We were always late anyway.” Isa toys with the braid he created, and Lea sits as still as possible in order not to dissuade him. “You and your ‘detours’.”

“Hey!” The fact that Isa remembers at all, no matter how few specifics, brings a smile to his face. “You enjoyed those, don’t tell me you didn’t.”

Isa’s fond silence is answer enough and, still laughing, Lea twists round to face him. “You practically came up with half of them! You and your...obsession with maps.”

His words slow as he takes in Isa’s face. The barest hint of a smile graces it, a quirk of the lips that’s practically invisible if you don’t know where to look for it. There’s a faint dusting of pink across the tops of Isa’s cheekbones, even as he’s ducked his head to hide the look in his eyes. 

Isa really is beautiful.

...but then again, this isn’t new information. It’s hard to ascertain why he can’t stop noticing it lately, when he should’ve had a whole lifetime to get used to it. It’s not as though Isa’s appearance has drastically changed lately, other than his new wardrobe and his...eyes.

But then again, perhaps it has. Smiles stretch over that face for the first time in years. The flush of life has returned to him, along with the solidly beating heart. 

It is quite difficult, to be honest, to tear his eyes away from the masterpiece that is his best friend.

Isa lifts his gaze to meet the stare, a thin eyebrow lifting in query. “What is it?”

He can’t look away, no matter how hard he tries. Isa’s green eyes glimmer in the fading sunlight, and the lines of his face are written with memory and a bond that denies erasure, no matter how twisted it may become.

“I think,” he begins, and realizes he has no idea how to end the sentence. “I think...this town suits you.”

_He’s flourishing. Is it because he has his heart back? Is it because he grew up?_

_It’s weird, seeing the way the scar moves with his face when he smiles like this._

Isa seems bemused. “And why’s that?” The line of his body is relaxed, lounged against the edge of Lea’s bed like he’s lived here his whole life.

Lea swallows, and hopes the sound isn’t as loud as it seems in his ears. “You’re practically glowing. It’s...nice to see.”

“Glowing…?” The other man’s head tilts to the side in confusion.

He gestures vaguely with his hand and hopes it seems nonchalant instead of the painfully awkward that it feels. “Y’know. Guess having a heart back will do that to a guy. It’s...good to see you doing well.”

“I could say the same of you.” Isa has crossed one leg over the other, head tilted back in contemplation. “You've adapted to these new responsibilities admirably.”

That’s high praise coming from Isa. 

“You think?” He flashes a grin, one that’s always been dubbed as cheeky. “Not bad for an ex-assass...in”

The joke dies on his tongue as something withdraws in Isa’s expression, not a wince but a clear tell of discomfort. The silence becomes heavy with unsaid words, and it can’t be just him who feels the fog of regret clouding the air.

“I…” Lea swallows hard, and twists the rest of the way round to properly face his friend. “Should I not have brought that up?”

There’s no point in trying to talk around himself with _Isa_ of all people. Isa, who can read him like a book that he’s memorized the words to. Might as well play it straight, and see what Isa does once the ball is his court.

A niggling little voice in the back of his head whispers that he’s avoiding responsibility again, but Lea forcibly bats it away and back down into the depths. It’s not avoidance if he’s just directly asking someone for an opinion, right?

Isa’s gaze is studying the carpet as though he’s attempting to analyze the miniscule fibers of it. “It seems…” He blinks, and that furious concentration is broken. “It seems wrong to speak of those things in the middle of…” Loosely, a hand waves around the room. “...all this.”

Absently, Lea studies the way the pale golden light glances off of Isa’s cheekbones. “...yeah.” It’s with no small amount of resignation that the feeling sinks in, the bitter taste of memories that have been dredged up and into the fragile sunlight. What was easily covered in shadows now becomes glaringly damning in the light of day.

“Lea?”

“Huh?”

“We should talk about it at some point.”

Lea finds his lips pursing, instincts kicking in despite it all. “About what?”

Deference. One of his strongest skills really. Dance round the topic until your partner is dizzy enough that it’s easy to lead them astray.

“About what happened to us.” Isa looks at him with an expression he can’t quite parse. “We won’t be able to move forward until we can address the past.”

Since when did Isa learn to talk like a therapist? Eh. Whatever. It was going to come up at some point. 

“I guess this was inevitable then.” With a sigh, he props his elbow up on his knee and looks up at Isa. “Did you want to begin or should I?”

Isa’s composure breaks slightly, clearly taken aback. “Now?”

“Why not? No time like the present.” He gives a lazy nod to the window. “Besides. The kids are still out with their friends. We’re alone right now.”

He’s gifted with that classic considering glance, as the scales in Isa’s mind visibly weigh the proposition. “In that case, you will begin.” His friend’s gaze drifts down the carpet, green eyes shuttered away again.

“...right.” 

...this is harder than he expected. The sins and tragedies and various hurts of their combined past? Now that’s a broad and diverse topic if ever there was one. 

Where even to begin…

“When did you first decide that your plans were more important than ours?” It’s out of his mouth before he can even think about it. The selfsame question that has coiled around him for years now, squeezing his pseudo-heart ever tighter, and yet was still always meant to go unsaid. 

If he could’ve taken it back in that next instant, he would’ve.

Isa doesn’t move a muscle, not even blinking at the accusation. “Seven years after joining the Organization.”

The silence hangs in limbo as Lea allows it to sink in. Four whole years before it all _really_ went to hell in a handbasket, huh. “What put the nail in it?”

Isa’s fingers interlace, hands held primly in his lap. “I was...reprimanded by the superior, after a subpar performance.” The lack of details sends an echoing chill down Lea’s spine. “From then on, I’d decided that no such thing would ever be allowed to happen again.” 

His chin tilts up, gazing vacantly at the wall across from him, and for a moment Lea can’t help but think it looks almost defiant. “Our...attachment was a weakness, a weak link in a chain I could not afford to break.” 

“Ouch.”

Sending a glance his way, Isa’s eyes soften. “You know as well as I do that’s a thing of the past.” His eyebrows knit together, as he studies Lea’s face. “I was unable to see clearly, in that state. You were probably, even then, the strongest piece of whatever it was that held me together.”

Well. Lea blinks, taken aback slightly. “Even...even after we’d…”

“Even then.” Isa’s gaze turns back to the far wall, contemplative. “Just the sight of you, knowing you were still in my presence, no matter how indirectly still safely within my grasp, was enough. I could go on, face whatever was necessary knowing that.”

The question sits heavy in the back of his throat, but it seems it’s Honesty Hour so he might as well ask. “What did you do after I...was destroyed?”

_I’m sure he knows exactly how it went. Hell, they probably had a meeting about it, Xemnas probably droned on for a good forty minutes about how ‘redundant’ it was or something. ‘Betraying the desire for completion’, as it were._

_...pompous bastard._

For a moment, the sensation is back, the cool dry nothingness of the spaces in-between, the hissing noises of the Dusks surrounding them, the worried clamor of Sora and his cronies, the crumbling feeling of slowly becoming even more of nothing at all, the-

“I remember being in a permanent state of annoyance, watching you with your...new companions.” Isa’s voice is dry, as if he has little patience for the words he speaks. “After your passing, that annoyance turned into rage. I was beside myself, no longer able to distinguish my true thoughts from the turmoil within. You were gone, for good as far as I knew, and that meant our original plan had fallen through without hope of repair.” 

The light makes the green in Isa’s eyes look slightly blue, or perhaps it’s just the shadows. “I had nothing left. My strength mattered nothing, if it was not in service of our desire. I was…” Isa’s throat bobs visibly, as though it’s difficult to speak. “I was strangely relieved then, to fade away in such a matter, even as the ache for what I thought was a heart consumed me entirely.”

“You were gone when I woke up.” Lea watches him through his lashes, mouth unconsciously curling into a frown. The next words that come out feel accusatory, but he endeavors to keep his tone neutral. “Did they steal you away or did you wake up and then decide to join them?”

 _Were you_ that _desperate to get whatever power you were chasing?_

Isa says nothing for a long moment. “...I assume you woke up in the place we were originally turned, yes?”

A short nod from Lea is enough of a reply, and Isa stares down at his hands. “I was awakened in the Graveyard, by the youngest of the Xehanorts. I was ready to despair, but then I saw what an opportunity it could provide.” His expression gentles itself, looking the most calm he has since this conversation started. “And as it ended in such results as I could hardly have dared to hope for, it was an ordeal worth having.”

“You shouldn’t have had to do that.” Even as Saïx’s sins were weighty, it wasn’t as though Axel’s crimes were somehow any lighter. “If anything, it should have been _me_ who had to go to all that trouble to actually...get them back. You shouldn’t have had to deal with any of it.”

“It was the first step on my road to penance.” Resignation is not what covers Isa’s expression. Perhaps it’s...peace? “If I could make up for a fraction of the mistakes I made, it would have been worth it.” His mouth tightens into a line. “...and even if not, it still would’ve been the right thing to do.”

It’s difficult to keep a straight face, when Isa is able to say it so calmly. “The right thing to do.” Lea murmurs it aloud, as if that will make the words make more sense. 

Ah. 

Hmm.

“Isa.” He waits until his friend has tilted his head up to look at him, expression neutral. “You’re a better man than I am.”

Isa’s brow twitches, in a way that betrays whatever effect the words ultimately have on him. “And why’s that?”

“You wanted to be forgiven.” His own gaze slides over Isa’s shoulder and over to the window, where the golden light just before dusk glimmers against the glass. “I think I just wanted to get Roxas back. And Xion, even if I couldn’t figure it out at the time.”

_The combined strength of the rest of the guardians...I wouldn’t stand a chance against the Organization on my own. I was really just there to help out a little, and then see to my own desires._

_And even now that Xion and Roxas are back...I still don’t know how to go about earning their forgiveness for all the shit I pulled...haven’t even brought it up, like an absolute coward._

_I don’t belong among those people, faux keyblade wielder that I am._

“Lea, you-” There’s a note of frustration in Isa’s tone as he leans forward, invading Lea’s bubble very slightly. “You do realise exactly which one of us was instrumental in making sure the world didn’t end, right?”

“That’s…” Lea keeps his gaze averted. “I hardly did anything. You were there. You know that the kids had to do my entire job anyway.”

Watching two of his best friends beat the stuffing out of the person he’s known better than he knows himself...it was an experience that he agonized through every second of, gritting his teeth and trying not to wince when any one of them called out in pain. 

“You’re not weak, for having a different kind of strength than they do.” Isa’s eyes are soft, a green like verdant meadows. “In fact, you are all the more powerful for having a strength that’s all your own.”

 _And what strength would that be? The one that led me to goading a_ kid _into killing Zexion? The one that left me too terrified to do anything but sit on my ass and pray Roxas wouldn’t ask too many questions? The one...the one where I gave up on Xion before she was even gone, just because it was the easier thing to do?_

“Lea…”

Lea blinks. Ah. Shit. That was...out loud.

“At least you even gave them a chance to grow in the first place.” Isa’s attention drops down to the coverlet spread out between them, face pensive. “Were Roxas and Xion left under my care, much might have gone differently. Had they not had you as their supporter…” He looks back up, expression weary. “I doubt they would have made it as far as they did.

“And yes, I’m sure you hurt them with your actions.” Isa’s eyes are trained on his face, unwavering. “As I hurt you, and you hurt me whether unintentionally or not. We all make mistakes and bad decisions sometimes. All humans do. It’s simply our responsibility to be able to recognize when that happens, and do what we can to atone.”

A little lost for words, Lea simply shakes his head in incredulity. “What self-help manuals have you been reading?”

Isa glances away, as if embarrassed. “I...have been...communicating with the Master of the Land of Departure.” One corner of his mouth quirks up into a half-smile. “Before she left, we discussed much on the topics of regret.”

“You...and Master Aqua?” It’s such an amusing thought that he can’t hold back a laugh. “How did that even start?”

“We were put in contact to discuss the details surrounding the deformation of the old Organization, and the old master’s remaining affairs. We began to speak casually and then…” Isa’s face pinches, looking a little blue. “I think...I’ve made a friend.”

A smile finds itself blooming over Lea’s face before he can think about it. “Would you look at that. You really are taking to this whole normal life thing like a duck to water.” No disrespect to the mouse king’s magician intended, of course. 

“I...perhaps.” He looks a little rueful. “It’s a kinder fate than I had envisioned, certainly more than I deserve. And yet…” Isa glances at him, with a half smile. “I will be sure not to waste it.”

Look at him. Isa’s green eyes are even more stare-worthy when they’re flooded with peace in this way. How could he possibly look away?

This is the man he’s grown up with, the person who has been there for his highest of high and lowest of lows. How many years has it been now? At least twenty. 

_Isa, eight years old and with the worst fringe known to man. His cobalt hair hanging limply into his eyes, as the voice of a third grade teacher scolds them for being late again. They are fast friends almost from the moment they meet, conflicting personalities be damned._

_Isa, twelve, and elbowing him out of the way to take the game controller. He was always better at puzzles, even if Lea had faster reflexes. Their laughter rings out the window and down to the street. That’s the year he finally starts pushing his hair back, allowing his eyes to be seen properly._

_Isa, fourteen years old and seated next to him on the edge of the fountain, comparing the bruises and scrapes they’d gotten running through the woods last night. Lea had been convinced they could find a werewolf out there if they really tried hard enough, and so a midnight stakeout was scheduled for the night of the full moon. All they’d discovered were that the sounds of the woods were much much louder at night, and that Lea was very bad at staying quiet when he was nervous._

_Isa, sixteen, and easily complying to his demands that they investigate the castle. His constant companion in getting hauled out by the guards, later sitting in Lea’s room and planning their next strategy._

_Isa, newly turned seventeen, and staring blankly across the room at him with badly veiled panic, as Xehanort’s imposing apparatus is aimed at the center of his chest._

_Saïx, two days before turning twenty-one, grimly silent and barely even flinching as Axel tends to the grievous wound in the center of his forehead._

_Saïx, twenty three and leaning his head onto Axel’s shoulder, simply sitting in silence together. Little do either of them know, it will be the last time a moment like this occurs for several years._

_Saïx, twenty seven and giving the order that Axel is to be dispatched to Castle Oblivion. “Find and eliminate the traitors.”_

_“Was I one of the ones you wanted to erase?”_

Isa, twenty eight and seated on the bed next to him, a fond smile playing over his face. The flush of humanity envelopes him.

Finally, finally, they are both whole again.

Everything, every unsaid word, every unvoiced cry, every tear held back by whatever magic the charms actually had, suddenly finds itself in the back of his throat. It almost hurts to look at Isa, to comprehend that every minute, every long-ago joy and every lingering sin has led them to be here.

“I never meant to...I shouldn’t have abandoned you.” The words are out before he knows what to do with them, but Lea finds himself barreling on ahead before he can quit. “If I had tried harder to get through to you, if I had made it clearer that I wasn’t leaving you behind for Roxas and Xion, If I-”

“No.” Isa’s voice is unbearably kind. “It was I who abandoned you, for failing to see what was right in front of me. We could’ve easily reclaimed hearts for our own, but I was too blind and caught up in thoughts of power to notice it.

“Lea.” Ever so gently, Lea finds his hands pulled into Isa’s own as the man squares his shoulders and looks him straight in the face. “I apologize. You don’t have to forgive me this time. Or, at the very least, let me try to earn it first.”

Isa’s gaze on him is all-consuming, something that the longer he looks into it, the more drawn in he is. To see the way this same face has grown and changed and matured over the years is a gift. It has been warped beyond recognition and somehow, through providence brought back to him as both a shadow and the purest version of his former self.

It’s truly startling how aquamarine and deeply sincere Isa’s eyes are. 

_...oh._

_I’m..._

“You’re flushing.” Isa’s smile can only be called a kindly teasing one, and by the stars above it suits him to have a dash of mischief on that handsome face. “Was it something I said?”

Heavens above, Lea _loves_ this man, in every sense of the word.

“No.” Gently, he squeezes Isa’s hands in his own. “Just something I realised.”

Roxas had once asked Axel what love was, and Axel had been completely stumped in how to respond. In the end, he’d bullshitted something together about friendship and love, how they were different, how they were the same. It had felt like a cop-out when the real answer was out there somewhere beyond his reach, something unknowable without the faculties of a heart. 

_A different kind of friendship, a different kind of bond. Romantic love, the adoration for a friend. They really are so alike, and yet so dissimilar._

_Perhaps Axel...perhaps I wasn’t so very wrong after all._

It’s unsurprising that it’s Isa, who could coax this depth of affection out of him. He loves easily and fully and always has, but not...not like this before. 

“Was it a good realization then? You look happy.” Isa’s voice is soft, even and peaceful.

So many years...so many things locked and pushed away and forfeited over the course of that terrible decade. 

“I am.” He smiles, as wide as he can.

So many memories that he would sooner forget...and yet they wouldn’t be here without them. Every moment...in order for them to have _this._

“I can practically hear you thinking.”

“Oh? I was just thinking about tomorrow.” Lea pulls away with some reluctance, and leans back onto his elbows, keeping his eyes on Isa. “Is there anything you’d like to do?”

His heart, his _heart,_ flutters in a familiar fond way when Isa smiles. “I’d like to know what made you grin like that.”

Lea’s heart thumps once in his chest, again, again, pitter pattering like an inebriated drum solo. It’s…

_There’s a boy with bright red hair, twelve years old, teaching his best friend how to throw a frisbee so that it sails all the way over the courtyard and over the walls into the castle yards._

_There’s a gangly teenager of about sixteen, hunched over his childhood desk and struggling with a writing assignment called ‘Describe the most important person in your life’._

_There’s a young man of just past twenty two, with red hair that falls to his chin and a permanent smirk. Most everyone thinks he’s been sleeping with Xemnas’s adjudant. It’s not true, but he lets the rumour persist. He doesn’t seem to have the heart to care._

_There’s a somber looking man of around twenty five, sitting in the back of a bar with his hood up. His face tattoos are just barely visible under the shadow, and the glass of whiskey to his elbow is almost half-empty. Ah, must be a heartbreak, the bartender assumes, from what they can see of his expression._

_There’s a man kneeled in the shadows of a hallway, breathing hard. In all twenty seven years of his life, he’s never experienced a pain like this before. A visible wound traces his side, cutting through most of the right side of his torso. No blood drips from the incision, but it’s edges are hazy, as if threatening to wisp away from the man’s very fibres. He stands, slowly. He has one last act to perform before his role in this show is over._

_Saïx...you really got me good. Is this what we’ve come to, you and I? You hate me and my defiance so much you’re willing to tear me apart with your bare hands._

_Heh. Figures. You and I always_ were _attached at the hip after all._

There are tears, gleaming quietly in his eyes and whispering the threat of overflowing. Lea blinks, and the world turns into a crystalline blur for a moment. 

He blinks again, and it swims back into focus. 

“I can barely believe it’s real sometimes. That we’re all here together.” He sighs, and tears his gaze away from Isa’s slightly concerned look. “It’s like a dream, where the instant I get too comfortable I’ll wake up.”

Loving Isa is simple. That much at least. On some level it’s the same feeling he’s always had about him, grown and evolved and tossed all over the place over the years. A best friend. A partner in crime. A rival, of sorts. An enemy, or at the very least a mutual feeling of betrayal. 

A lover? Not yet. Not in the classic sense of the word at least. 

“If it is a dream, then I’ll endeavor not to wake you.” Isa’s voice is soft, like he understands how fragile the peace can feel. “You deserve a rest.”

After all, Isa’s still his partner in crime, be it friend, foe, or something a little more...hm.

He grins, warm and lazily up at his friend. Isa’s lips are quirked upwards slightly, and he can’t help but let his gaze linger on them for a moment or two. “You really know how to make a guy feel appreciated, huh.”

Isa rolls his eyes lightly. “Only the best for you, Lea.” Even as the words are clearly sarcastic, truth hums in the air around them.

“Hey...Isa?” Every move he makes feels charged now, even as Isa probably doesn't see it that way at all. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

“What is it?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

Isa simply stares at him for a long moment. When he speaks, his expression is unreadable, voice equally as non-descript. “Yes. Have you?”

“...yeah.” With a slight grunt, he sits up again, shifting in place to face the other. “Who was it for you? Do I know them?” Lea leans forwards slightly, and feels his own eyes burn with mischief.

It’s a gamble, sure, and that’s always really been Luxord’s thing more than his own. But it’s not like he doesn’t know how to appreciate the thrill of a chance. 

After all, it seems hardly likely that the bond strong enough to tie them together through so many states of non-being and deaths and half-deaths is entirely one-sided. Who would he be, if he didn’t play with risk the same way that he plays with fire?

...besides. Even if he’s completely missing the mark here, it’s not like it’s the end of the world. Lea knows what that’s like well enough. He’ll still always love Isa, even if Isa never loves him in quite the same way. 

But...what _if?_

Isa makes a wordless grumbling sound, looking at him with a familiar exasperation. “You’re incorrigible.” For a moment, it seems as though he’s not intending to answer, eyes cast downward in reflection. 

Lea’s heart throbs, somehow suddenly in the back of his throat. Is he-

“Besides.” Cool fingers trace the curve of Lea’s jaw, as Isa looks up again and smiles. “You already know the answer.”

There’s an electric pulse under his skin, sparking up wherever Isa’s fingers touch. It races down his nerves and into his heart, spiking up the pounding to entirely new heights. 

Nothing for it then. 

Lea leans forward, but the catlike grace he’s learned how to employ with ease seems far away, wrested from him to the beat of his jittery hands. The thrill soars to new heights, and the quiet kiss he places on the corner of Isa’s mouth burns with something too pure to describe. 

“Yeah. I figured it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> and then they made out and lived happily ever after.


End file.
